Scenario:
BP is installed on 2 Virtual Machines. 1 is Application Server (AS) and the other is Runtime Resource (RR).
Runtime Resource is not logged into but has a windows task scheduler that runs on Virtual Machine START UP.
The task scheduler executes script below and brings up BP:
[Blue Prism Install Location]\automate.exe /resourcepc /public
Login Agent is used to login to the RR to execute a process.
This ONLY works when the process being executed is ran in the background and fails when the process has to run in the foreground.
Issue:
The script executed by the task scheduler launches BP in the background using specified credentials (if provided).
On login via the Login Agent, it does not own the foreground process (because the task scheduler script owns it)
Implications:
You cannot run processes in the foreground i.e launching Internet Explorer and capturing details or Notepad.
Work around / Solution:
Run the task scheduler on Virtual Machine startup as per usual.
Run the same script on user login (login via login agent) as a startup task/program in the startup folder. However, you will have to kill the previous process launched by the task scheduler.
Script will live here and will be executed on login:
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\StartUp
Example commands for the script with 2 steps (variations also available in Power Shell):
taskkill /IM “Automate.exe” /F
[Blue Prism Install Location]\automate.exe /resourcepc /public
This will allow the user logged in via the login agent to own all the processes in the background and foreground.
Things to consider:
Task scheduler script is required to run on RR boot because it launches BP and makes the resource available to the AS and IC (interactive client) for the login agent to login
Why is this not a common issue? Because most Virtual Machines don’t shut down. If they do, someone physically logs in and manually launches BP (thereby launching it in the foreground)
Why did it happen to us? We’re running in a cloud environment and in order to optimize costs, Virtual Machines are turned on & off on a schedule so they don’t run 24 hours with no workloads
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